"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Thursday, June 19, 2003

The First Salute: A View of the America Revolution (Barbara Tuchman, 1988)

Saint Eustatius was a Dutch-held island somewhere in the Caribbean; it was a place where the American colonies were able to purchase arms for their struggle against Britain.  Tuchman writes about a November 1776 incident where somebody in charge at S.E. fired a cannon in salute to an American vessel - this was the first international acknowledgment of the independence of the United States.

Among other consequences:  Britain was quite displeased, leading to problems for the Netherlands (including a temporary takeover of S.E.)
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